Road to the Big Time

road to the big time a century-long Dream leads creighton to the big east ST E V E N P I VOVA R

road to the big time

a century-long Dream leads creighton to the big east

ST E V E N P I VOVA R

road to the big time by steven pivovar EDITOR Dan Sullivan DESIGNER Christine Zueck-Watkins PHOTO imaging Jolene McHugh EXECUTIVE EDITOR Mike Reilly PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER Terry Kroeger ON PRECEDING PAGE: Grant Gibbs, Gregory Echenique and Doug McDermott celebrate a victory over Wichita State in the 2013 Missouri Valley Conference tournament title game.

THIS PAGE: Jim Karabatsos scores on a layup against Omaha University at the Creighton gym in 1949.

ON FACING PAGE: Anthony Tolliver dunks in the 2006 Valley tournament.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior consent of the publisher, Omaha World-Herald Co. Copyright 2013 Omaha World-Herald Co. 1314 Douglas St. Omaha, NE 68102-1811 First Edition ISBN: 978-0-615-89513-0 Printed by Walsworth Publishing Co. Marceline, MO

Table of Contents 2 A century-long dream fulfilled A long-sought invitation to the big time finally arrives

7 Building a foundation From the start, the Hilltop was home to big hoop dreams

35 Reviving the dream Red McManus resurrects long-dormant ambitions

61 Peaks and valleys A conference tie can’t assure consistent success

119 Taking it to another level Dana Altman builds a platform that would last

183 A big-time player A two-time All-American raises the Jays’ national stature

244 Getting ready for the next big step Creighton prepares to compete on a bigger stage

248 Acknowledgments, index & credits

1911-1959

Building a foundation Creighton closed its 1923-24 season against Marquette at the Hilltop gym.

The two schools played four games that year, with each school hosting two.

They split in Milwaukee, while Creighton won both games in Omaha over the Golden Avalanche, as Marquette was known at the time. After the final game, a 32-12 Creighton rout, The World-Herald called the team “probably the greatest in Blue history.�

Creighton and Marquette prepare to square off in the Hilltop gym in 1924.

Creighton players, from left, are Johnny Trautman, Ike Mahoney, Jimmy Lovely, Joe Speicher and Sid Corenman.

Creighton’s Dick Nolan (45) shoots against Ohio State, as Ed Beisser moves into position for a rebound in a 60-34 Bluejay win in December 1941. As the Bluejays began to pull away in the second half, the Creighton crowd chanted, “Double the score! Double the score!”

The Jays heeded the call, extending their lead to 42-21 with seven minutes left before coach Hickey cleared the bench.

Creighton won the 1941 Valley championship while beating Marquette, Kentucky, Minnesota and Michigan State in nonconference games. The Bluejays advanced to the NCAA Western Regional in Kansas City, where they posted a 57-48 win over Big Six champion Iowa State in the opening round to move to the national quarterfinals, not yet known as the Elite Eight. Championship hopes were derailed in a 48-39 loss to Washington State, which made it to the national title game. Creighton closed out an 18-7 season with a 45-44 win over Wyoming in the regional consolation game.

“We face the toughest schedule in the middle west,” Hickey warned before the 1941-42 season. The Bluejays opened with a 43-16 rout of Denver four days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor to plunge the United States into World War II. They added home wins over UCLA and Ohio State in December and headed into Missouri Valley play with a 6-2 record. A 39-19 victory over Drake closed the regular season, with Creighton sharing the Valley championship with Henry Iba’s Oklahoma A&M team.

The Bluejays then traveled to New York City for the National Invitation Tournament, which at the time was more prestigious than the NCAA tournament. Their opening assignment was a West Texas State team with a starting lineup averaging 6-foot-6 that had produced 28 wins in 30 games. The underdog Jays, playing before 16,585 at Madison Square Garden, led by 17 points in the second half before squeezing out a 59-58 victory.

Interviewed on the floor after the game ended, Hickey said, “I’m so proud of my boys, I could bust. They played like champions, didn’t they?”

With West Texas and tournament favorite Long Island University losing in the first round, Hickey’s team became the toast of New York. The World-Herald’s Fred Ware wrote: “Never did a Creighton team perpetrate such a whacking upset.”

The Bluejays didn’t play their second NIT game for a week, and in the interim, spent time touring the city. The team visited Grant’s Tomb and the top of the Empire State Building and sat in on a radio broadcast of Fred Waring’s orchestra.

The return to Madison Square Garden ended their time as toast of the town.

Creighton lost to Western Kentucky 49-36 in the semifinals, then claimed third place with a 48-46 win over Toledo.

Stars Ed Beisser and Ralph Langer remained in New York to participate in a charity game involving collegiate players and the

Omaha Mayor Dan Butler hosted a salute to the Jays after their 1942 NIT success.

“I know all Omaha joins me in paying well-deserved tribute to Hickey and this fine team that ranks with any in past Creighton history,” he said.

U.S. Army All-Stars. The rest of the team visited Niagara Falls before returning to Omaha, where proud alumni threw the Bluejays a victory banquet at the Hotel Paxton.

The next fall, Creighton’s football team compiled a 5-4 record, closing the season with a 33-19 home loss to powerhouse Tulsa.

It would turn out to be the last football game Creighton would ever play. A couple of weeks later, the Rev. David Shyne, Creighton’s athletic director, announced that the school was suspending athletics for the duration of World War II. Hickey’s basketball team would be allowed to play its 1942-43 season, but Hickey and Maurice “Skip” Palrang, the school’s football coach, were instructed not to schedule games for future seasons. Hickey’s Bluejays opened in December with a five-point win over Kansas, the first of 16 straight victories over collegiate teams on the way to another Valley championship. Creighton also went 3-1 in exhibitions against powerful armed forces teams that featured former college stars.

BUILDING A FOUNDATION 21

“We were halfway to Oklahoma City, and our coach told me I had to stay somewhere else, that I couldn’t stay with the team,” Gibson said. “I was 18 years old, and that might have been the last time I cried.

“Luckily, we had another guy on the team from Omaha named Glen Sullivan. He told me, ‘Don’t worry about it, Gibby, wherever you stay, I’m going with you.’ We went across town, and if the coach would have known how much fun we had, he wouldn’t have liked it.”

Gibson scored 1,272 points over his three seasons and was the school’s third all-time leading scorer when his career ended in 1956-57. He said later he would have pursued a career in basketball had the old Minneapolis Lakers of the National Basketball Association offered him a contract.

“If they had signed me, I would have never played baseball,” said Gibson, who went on to become one of the greatest pitchers in major league history with the St Louis Cardinals.

“That would have been a shame, I guess.

“I’m not as sure I would have been as good a basketball player. But I enjoyed the sport.

It’s always been my No. 1 sport.”

Gibson did play one season with the Harlem Globetrotters before signing with the Cardinals.

Creighton posted a 15-6 record in Gibson’s senior season — Thomsen’s second as coach.

The Bluejays played their first true home games at the Civic Auditorium in 1957-58, losing to South Dakota, DePaul, Marquette and Oklahoma City in the building.

Thomsen resigned after his 1958-59 team went 13-9. On Thomsen’s watch, Creighton Bob Gibson received a watch and a pen-and-pencil set in 1956 as the most valuable player from the Creighton alumni association’s Jim Green. The theme of the year-end banquet, The World-Herald reported, “was pretty much a reiteration of Creighton’s previously stated desire to return to basketball prominence.” Coach Tommy Thomsen raised Creighton’s record to 15-6 in the 1956-57 season, although the schedule featured games against Gannon, Western Ontario, St. Michael’s of Vermont and Westmar of Le Mars, Iowa.

32

BUILDING A FOUNDATION

had made some baby steps in moving toward Reinert’s goal of fielding a big-time basketball program.

His successor would take a pedal-to-themetal approach to accelerate the process.

Bob Gibson splits Morningside defenders Don Poppen, left, and Jerry Kreykes in a 59-44 victory in Tommy Thomsen’s first season as coach. Gibson led the Jays during the 1955-56 season with 22 points and 7.6 rebounds a game.

McManus congratulates Silas in 1964 as he leaves the floor in his last home game at the Civic Auditorium. There was a long standing ovation from his teammates and a crowd of 10,556.

“Applause continued while (Oklahoma City’s) Jim Ware scored two foul shots, Jay Tom Potter dribbled upcourt and hit a jumper and Oklahoma City returned the ball,” The World-Herald reported.

Creighton’s season-opening winning streak came to an end with a 16-point loss at No. 6 UCLA. The Bluejays bounced back to win six of their next seven games before back-to-back losses at Providence and St. John’s left them 15-4 heading into February.

After splitting a pair of home contests, Creighton traveled to Miami for a memorable visit, in more ways than one.

The Hurricanes came into the game with future professional star Rick Barry leading the nation in scoring. Creighton held Barry to 4 points in the first half and 19 for the game — he averaged 32 per game that season — in a record-setting 124-94 victory.

“That was the greatest game we ever played,” McManus said. “We did everything right.”

The performance delighted the Bluejays’ newest fan, a young heavyweight boxer by the name of Cassius Clay. Preparing for his first championship fight against Sonny Liston, Clay was working out at the arena when the Bluejays held their morning shoot-around.

Borrowing a pair of basketball shoes from one of the Bluejays, the boxer who would go on to acclaim as Muhammad Ali showed he wasn’t the greatest on the basketball court.

“He couldn’t throw the ball into the ocean,” McManus recalled. “If he were standing on the beach,” Apke echoed years later.

Apke also remembered Silas and Ali taping a promotion for a Miami television station. “You have to remember that, at the time, no one was giving Ali a chance to beat Liston. Paul and Ali did this little publicity spot, with Ali playing one-on-one against Paul.

One of our team jokes was that Paul Silas had a better chance of beating Sonny Liston than Ali had of scoring on Paul.”

Ali couldn’t attend the Bluejays’ game but sent his chauffeur, who took some of the players to Ali’s quarters after the game.

“We sat and talked to him, and we got a chance to meet Sugar Ray Robinson, too,” said Pointer, who made the visit. “It was quite a thrill.”

Creighton followed up the Miami win with a victory over Western Michigan in Chicago, then returned home to prepare for what would be Silas’ final home game at the Civic Auditorium.

The morning of the game against Oklahoma City, McManus accepted an NCAA offer of an at-large spot in the tournament. The NIT called an hour later with its own bid, but McManus stuck by his commitment to the NCAA tourney, which by this time was the more prestigious.

“You look forward to a tourney from the first day of practice October 15,” McManus said. “Especially if you’re an independent.”

“You look forward to a tourney from the first day of practice October 15. Especially if you’re an independent.”

— Red McManus

The Bluejays posted a 94-77 win over Oklahoma City, a team they had lost to by 16 points in early January, then took their act to Madison Square Garden, with Officer supplying another game-winning shot — this one from 20 feet at the buzzer — to beat NYU 88-86.

“For a basketball player, playing in the Garden is the heights,” Pointer said. “That’s mecca. It certainly beat playing in South Bend.”

That’s where Creighton closed the regular season with an 84-71 win over the Fighting Irish. That left the Bluejays with a 21-5 record heading into a third matchup against Oklahoma City in the opening round of the NCAA tournament in Dallas.

Creighton rolled to an 89-78 victory, with McGriff scoring 25 points before fouling out. Silas added 15 points and a facility-record 27 rebounds. For the second time in three seasons, Creighton found itself one of the last 16 teams with a chance at the national championship.

REVIVING THE DREAM 49

a team to remember: 1973-74 ON THE BIG STAGE Eddie Sutton took his team to Brazil for 12 games during the summer of 1973 to prepare it for the season. Guard Ralph Bobik, who returned with an Amazon blowgun, said, “The trip should really help us play better on the road.” The senior-led Jays proceeded to go 8-3 on the road, highlighted by a 75-69 win against sixth-ranked Marquette in Milwaukee, where the then-Warriors had won 99 of their previous 100 games. The Jays rallied from 12 points down, then pulled away from a team that would finish the season as the national runner-up. “All season long we’ve been living for this game,” said Jays junior guard Charles Butler. Losing coach Al McGuire, who would win a national championship in 1977, said, “They’re a better ballclub than we are. Well-disciplined, well-coached.” The Marquette win came during a 10-game winning streak that put Creighton in position for its first NCAA tournament bid in 10 years. Creighton opened NCAA play with a 77-61 win over Texas but lost 55-54 to Kansas in the Midwest Regional in Tulsa. An 80-71 victory over Louisville in a consolation game gave the team a school-record 23 wins. “It’s most gratifying to be on the greatest team in Creighton history,” said forward Gene Harmon, who with Ted Wuebben and Bobik had started three years. The underclassmen were a talented group as well, carrying the Jays to 20 wins and another NCAA bid in the 1974-75 season. Sutton joined the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.

Doug brookins Brookins (52), a 6-8 center, led the Jays in the upset of Marquette, scoring 25 points.

He finished with 1,115 points in three seasons, averaging 13.6 points and 6.3 rebounds for his career. Brookins was drafted by the NBA’s Washington Bullets in 1975.

charles butler Butler (21) at 6-foot-4 was the Jays’ smallest starter. He missed the beginning of the 1973-74 season with a thigh injury but returned in January and averaged 6.3 points a game. The guard was considered a defensive specialist with “an uncanny knack of anticipating an opponent’s next move,” according to The World-Herald.

He and Brookins shared the team MVP award in 1975.

gene harmon Harmon led the team in scoring for three seasons and finished his career with 1,369 points. The 6-6 forward was a high school star at Schuyler, Neb. “Hopefully, I’ve been some inspiration to small-town kids in Nebraska,” he said. An outstanding shooter, his long jumper at the buzzer beat No. 7 Houston at the Civic Auditorium in one of the greatest finishes in school history.

Harmon was drafted in the sixth round by the Boston Celtics and inducted into the Creighton Athletic Hall of Fame.

ted wuebben The 6-6 Wuebben led Creighton in rebounding for all three seasons he played.

He also had the most rebounds in a single game by any Jay not named Silas, grabbing 24 against Cleveland State in 1973. He was in the hospital with back spasms the week before the NCAA regional game against Kansas. “Oh, I’m going to play,” he said.

“I’ve been waiting four years for this, and a little pain isn't going to keep me out.”

He did play, and coach Eddie Sutton noted, “He got a little tired, but he played well.”

ralph bobik Bobik, a 6-7 guard, averaged 6.7 assists a game during his career, leading the team each year he played. World-Herald writer Don Lee referred to him as the “crazy-legged master ball-handler” during his senior year, when he set the school record with 252 assists. Bobik had a sense of humor about his passing skills. “The way I shoot ... I figure I’d better be giving the ball up,” he said. Bobik finished his career with 549 assists, the highest total for a three-year player. He was drafted in the fifth round by the Phoenix Suns and inducted into the Creighton Athletic Hall of Fame.

“Doc apologized for working on Larry’s back,” Apke said. “I told him that the Hippocratic Oath must be a little stronger than the school fight song.”

Creighton’s strategy that day was to deny Bird the basketball.

“We didn’t want him to have many touches,” Apke said. “We held him to 12 field-goal attempts. He made 11 and tipped in the miss.”

Bird scored 18 straight points to give his team a 52-44 lead with 6:20 remaining. Creighton began its comeback by unleashing its “monster” press, which caused two turnovers and two 10-second calls. Creighton tied the game with 4:41 to play and got the ball back after another Indiana State turnover.

Apke ordered his team into its stall, which the Bluejays called the “5 game,” and ran the clock down to 23 seconds.

“We called timeout and tried to run a special play, but I probably made one pass too many before getting into the play,” Eccker said.

“They were double-teaming me, and I thought, ‘I have to get this to Rick.’ I shoveled the ball to Rick, and he hits a big-time shot.”

Rick Apke’s 18-foot shot swished through the net with three seconds left and capped the 54-52 victory. In winning, Creighton became the only team in the nation that season to win both the regular-season and tournament championships in its conference.

Tom Apke gives instructions to Rick during the Bluejays’ final timeout before Rick’s game-winning shot against Indiana State.

Apke’s “5 game” would spread the floor and use a series of passes and cuts to free a player for an easy basket. “We are trying to score,” Apke said. “We don’t use the word ‘stall.’ We call it a ‘control game’ in which we no longer take the outside jumpers and play for a higher-percentage shot.”

He credited Henry Iba with the offense, which Iba passed on to Eddie Sutton.

Apke liked it as an assistant to Sutton and retained it.

On the facing page, the crowd erupted after Rick Apke’s shot dropped through the net.

“The noise near the end of the game was of another world,” The World-Herald’s Michael Kelly wrote. “It was off the decibel scale. The roar was along that fine line between heavenly and demonic.”

82

Peaks and valleys

The Bluejays headed for Dallas, where they had drawn a first-round assignment against sixth-ranked Missouri. The Tigers were playing without coach Norm Stewart, who had missed the final month of the season after undergoing cancer surgery. Creighton came out red hot, shooting 57.7 percent from the field in taking a 2-point lead into halftime. Twenty minutes later, the Bluejays’ 20-11 season was over, as Missouri used a 24-7 run to fuel the rally that produced an 85-69 win.

With all the key contributors returning, Barone had high expectations for his 1989-90 team. Voters in the Valley’s preseason poll agreed, tagging Creighton as the favorite in the title race.

Creighton struggled from the get-go, losing its opener to Coppin State and then dropping its third game of the season at fifth-ranked Missouri. An early January win over Notre Dame started Creighton on a streak in which it won seven of eight games, but late road losses at Drake and Illinois State left Creighton tied for second in the Valley.

A home victory over Wichita State — the Valley still played its conference tournament at campus sites — advanced Creighton into the final at Illinois State, where the Redbirds claimed the league’s automatic NCAA berth with a 69-64 victory. Harstad said afterward that the Bluejays still had hopes of landing an at-large berth in the tournament. “I think we have an outside chance,” he said. “We’ve had a good year. Every year we seem to improve our wins. We can just keep our fingers crossed and hope.”

It was just the second time in program history that Creighton had won 20 games in back-to-back seasons. But it wasn’t enough to impress the NCAA basketball committee, which passed over the Bluejays. The school settled for the consolation prize, a berth in the NIT. Creighton’s season came to an end in Chicago as old 1990: another setback Todd Eisner took a seat at the end of the Creighton bench next to the Rev. Robert Hart, the team chaplain, midway through the 1989-90 season.

Eisner had major surgery on his right knee as a freshman and on his left knee as a junior. “I’ve never really heard of anybody that’s blown out both knees in a three-year period,” said Eisner, who was leading the team with 5.1 assists per game at the time of his second injury. Tony Barone said the team wasn’t the same without Eisner. “You might replace some of his skills but not his mental approach to the game,” he said. Eisner returned for his senior season.

rival DePaul pulled out an 89-72 win.

“They’re an excellent team, and they showed it,” DePaul coach Joey Meyer said. “It took so long to shake them because Harstad and Gallagher are excellent players.”

By then, Harstad and Gallagher — who finished one-two in the league’s player of the year voting — had come to be known as the “Dynamic Duo.” They set out the next season to bring a pair of illustrious careers to a close with an exclamation point.

106 Peaks and valleys

Harstad, the Valley player of the year as a junior, made five of 11 3-point shots as a member of a summer NIT all-star team that toured Europe. Barone said Harstad would again play inside for his senior year. “I would be real reluctant to take a kid who is going to be the fourth player in the history of the conference to get 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds and change his position this year,” Barone said. “I’m pretty slow, but I’m not that slow.”

“There is no limit to how far we can go,” Gallagher said before the season.

Harstad said the Bluejays were shooting for a spot in the national rankings, an accomplishment that had eluded them in spite of their success the previous two seasons.

Coaches normally downplay rankings, but Barone said the recognition they bring would be fitting for this group. “It’s almost an acceptance thing,” he said.

“You’re accepted as a program when you get ranked.

We would like to appear in those ratings sometime in March. That would be wonderful.”

The season got off to another up-and-down start, with a mid-January loss leaving Creighton 8-6. The Bluejays then rattled off eight straight wins, lost at Tulsa, and strung together four more wins to capture their second Valley regular-season title in three seasons.

The Jays routed Drake in the opening game of the 1991 MVC tournament, played at neutral-site St. Louis for the first time. They followed with a win over Southern Illinois in the semifinals and advanced to the championship game against Southwest Missouri State, later known as Missouri State.

Peaks and valleys 107

Fans gave Buford, dubbed “Rodzilla,” a happy ride after the Jays won the 1999 Valley tournament and earned a berth in the NCAA tourney, the school’s first since 1991. “It was a goal we set at the beginning of the year, to go to the tournament and win it,” Buford said.

“During the season we had a lot of doubts. But we put it together in the end.” The airport crowd that welcomed the team back to Omaha included Mayor Hal Daub, who presented Altman with a key to the city.

Creighton earned a No. 10 seed in the tournament and drew Louisville as its first-round game in Orlando, Fla. The Bluejays trailed 31-23 at halftime and 40-27 early in the second half. The Jays rallied by going on a 22-7 run, taking their first lead on Walker’s threepoint play with 3:04 to play.

After Louisville tied the game, Buford swung control of the game to the Bluejays when he swished a 3-point attempt with the shot clock winding down. “That was like an ESPN play-of-the-game type of play,” Walker said. Creighton then made 10 straight free throws over the final two minutes to finish off a 62-58 win that propelled the Bluejays into a second-round game against fifth-ranked Maryland.

The magic ran out against the Terrapins, who built a 21-point lead but had to fight off a late rally in the second half to record a 75-63 win. Creighton finished 22-9 with a performance that mirrored its season — a good start, a lapse along the way and then a gutsy finish.

“It would have been very easy to throw in the towel,” Altman said after the game. “It’s about like it was in mid-February when we were 15-8 and it didn’t look like we were going anywhere. But then they kind of toughened up and fought a little bit and had themselves a respectable season.”

In five seasons, Altman had taken a program that had bottomed out and not only got it back to the NCAA tournament but also managed to win a game there. In doing so, Altman had given Creighton fans a new set of expectations, and nobody knew that better than he did.

Sarver, the longtime athletic department employee, recalled a conversation he had with the coach prior to the Bluejays’ first game in Orlando. “I was telling him how great this was, that our fans were unbelievably excited and that if he could find a way to get this done about once every three seasons, they’d build a statue of him,” Sarver said. “He looked at me and said, ‘If we’re only doing this once every three years, then I’ve failed, and I won’t be around here very long.’ ” With Walker and Sears back, Altman knew Creighton had a chance to be good as it started preparing for the 1999-2000 season. And while he had to come up with a scoring option to replace Buford, who finished his career as the school’s all-time scoring leader with 2,116 points, he thought he had found it in a mop-haired sharpshooter from Pella, Iowa.

Like Buford, Walker and Sears, Kyle Korver didn’t have college recruiters banging down his door when he was in high school. Altman recalled how he and assistant coach Greg Grensing drove all over Las Vegas to watch Korver play at a summer AAU tournament.

“He wasn’t playing in any of the main gyms,” Altman said. “We had to go find him. As we watched him play, Greg and I kept saying, ‘Gosh, he really shoots it.’ We needed a shooter so bad.

“We were a little concerned about some of the other parts of his game, and we wondered who he would be able to guard. But we kept coming back to that we needed him as a shooter. We also liked how he handled himself. There was an air about him that he knew he could play.”

“Kyle Korver” wasn’t a widely known name when he came to media day as a freshman.

TAKING IT TO ANOTHER LEVEL 133

Mathies earned a spot on the All-Valley second team, as did Tolliver, who also was selected as the league’s most improved player.

That remains a point of pride for Tolliver.

“Everyone always talks about what can happen if you work hard,” Tolliver said. “I’m an example of that.”

His emergence, along with Funk’s return, sent expectations for the 2006-07 season skyrocketing, good news considering the Qwest Center was adding 1,518 more seats to raise its capacity to more than 17,500 for basketball.

Altman unsuccessfully tried to rein in talk that this was a team bound for the Sweet 16 — or beyond — but Creighton’s first-ever preseason ranking only fueled the fire.

The Bluejays started the season ranked 19th in the AP poll and opened with a 78-42 rout of Mississippi Valley State that actually dropped them a spot in the ratings. A 73-61 loss at Nebraska sent Creighton tumbling out of the rankings altogether and set the tone for the first two months of the season.

The Bluejays would play well for a game or two before slipping up. From mid-January on, they began to play like the team they had been expected to be and closed the regular season with a 71-54 drubbing of Wichita State. They headed to St. Louis as the No. 2 seed for the conference tournament.

2006: Upset of the musketeers Dane Watts fights for one of his 10 rebounds in a 73-67 victory over No. 24 Xavier at the Qwest Center. “They’re a very difficult team to play against at home,” Musketeer coach Sean Miller said. “When you look at their history, it’s a tough place to walk in and win.”

A 21-point win over Indiana State put Creighton into the semifinals against Missouri State. With Funk, Tolliver and Nick Porter combining to score all but 10 of the team’s points, the Bluejays rolled to a 75-58 victory and a spot in the championship game.

Funk delivered a virtuoso performance against the Bears, scoring 33 points — the most by a Bluejay in a Valley tournament game — to go with eight rebounds, three assists and two steals.

“We’ve had a lot of good performances here, but I’m not sure if we’ve ever had a better one,” Altman said of Funk after the win.

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TAKING IT TO ANOTHER LEVEL

Creighton’s championship opponent was old nemesis Southern Illinois. The Salukis brought a 13-game winning streak into the final and had beaten the Bluejays in the last eight meetings dating to the championship game of the 2003 tournament.

Funk had played a minor role as a freshman in the 2003 win.

This time around, he was the catalyst for the 67-61 win that locked up his third trip to the NCAA tournament. His 19 points pushed his three-game tournament total to 66 and earned him the most valuable player award.

“I didn’t want to go out a loser,” Funk said. “It hasn’t been a picture-perfect year for me, but to play this well toward the end, put three games together and have a decent tournament, it feels pretty good.”

Funk missed out on one more chance to be a Bluejay hero.

Dead-eye Nate Funk shoots over Southern Illinois’ Jamal Tatum in the 2007 Valley final.

Wichita State’s physical defense held Doug McDermott to 7 points in a 68-54 Shocker victory in Omaha in 2011.

McDermott also missed the front end of two one-and-one free throw opportunities.

“When you leave double-digit free throws out there, because we missed those front ends of one-and-ones, it’s tough to beat a good team,” Greg McDermott said.

Games were slipping away, and it wasn’t just because the Bluejays were getting outmanned on the court. Greg McDermott sensed a lack of leadership and didn't see an immediate remedy. But he suspected that the leader his team needed might be a player who wasn’t even practicing at the time. Gibbs was still recovering from an offseason knee operation, so he spent the bulk of practice working with trainers or sitting on the sidelines.

“I did spend a lot of time talking with Coach Mac that year,” Gibbs recalled. “He told me the one thing we were lacking was a guy that could lead. He said that more than anything next year, no matter how much I played, that he needed me to be that kind of guy. I started seeing things from a coach’s perspective.”

At the same time, he was laying the foundation with his teammates to assume such a role.

“When you’re not playing, you can’t go around getting into everybody’s stuff,” he said.

“I just started trying to build relationships with everyone on the team, so guys could get to the point where they could trust me.”

He also texted his coach with ideas on how he could help. “Obviously, I knew I was still going to have to go out and prove myself on the court, but I think what I did during that season really paid off.”

A couple of mid-February home wins left Creighton with 17 victories, but the Bluejays played poorly in a BracketBusters game at Akron and let a chance for a big upset at Wichita State slip away. Echenique’s basket had tied the game at 65-65 with 1:11 to play, and Creighton had a chance to take the lead, but Doug McDermott missed a one-and-one

“He knows he has a lot of areas in which he can improve, and that’s the great news with him,” Greg McDermott said of freshman son Doug. “He’s far from reaching his ceiling.”

free-throw opportunity with 33 seconds to play.

The Shockers’ Aaron Ellis then made a layup with two seconds left, giving his team a 67-65 victory and handing Creighton its seventh loss of the season by five points or fewer. The Bluejays closed out the regular season by defeating Northern Iowa at home, running its streak of winning at least 10 games in league play to 15 consecutive seasons.

Three days later, Doug McDermott made some Missouri Valley history when he became the first freshman to earn first-team allconference honors since Wichita State’s Cleo Littleton in the 1951-52 season. McDermott also was named the league’s freshman and newcomer of the year. Young gained a spot on the All-Valley second team, Echenique was picked to the all-defensive team and joined McDermott on the all-newcomer team, while Manigat and McDermott earned spots on the all-freshman team.

McDermott finished the regular season fourth in scoring in the Valley and second in rebounding. Perhaps the most striking aspect of McDermott’s first season was its consistency. He scored 10 points or more in 26 of Creighton’s 31 regular-season games, ranking in a tie for second in the nation for most double-figure scoring games by a freshman. He scored 15 points or more and grabbed seven rebounds or more in a Valley-best 11 of 18 conference games. His eight double-doubles led the league.

A BIG-TIME PLAYER 197

The Bluejays worked their way through the bracket in St. Louis by defeating Drake in the quarterfinals and Evansville in the semifinals.

Wichita State also won its first two games, setting up a third meeting between the two teams, eight days after their classic showdown to close the regular season.

Creighton won this one, too, pulling out a 68-65 victory to win the tournament for the 12th and final time. The Bluejays led by 12 points with 4:21 to play. But the Shockers rallied, pulling within a point at 66-65, when Malcolm Armstead, a former Oregon Duck who had transferred to Wichita State, buried a 3-point shot with 43 seconds to play.

Creighton called time out after Wragge hit five 3-pointers, including four in the first half, against Wichita State in St. Louis.

On the facing page, Manigat scores the last basket against the Shockers, who would advance to the NCAA's Final Four.

advancing the ball past half-court to set up its possession.

The Bluejays wanted to get the ball to Gibbs, but Wichita State denied that option.

Instead, Manigat found himself with the basketball in front of the Bluejay bench with the shot clock winding down.

“I just wanted to get the ball to Grant and get out of the way,” Manigat said. “Everything else got shut down, and I knew I just had to make a play. I decided to put my head down and head to the basket. Fortunately, I got a miraculous shot to go down.”

He might have considered it miraculous given his problems making layups throughout his career, but the ball simply kissed off the backboard and dropped through.

Creighton survived Wichita State’s last gasp to extend the game when Armstead’s 3-pointer — contested by Doug McDermott — hit the side of the rim and bounced away at the buzzer.

236

A BIG-TIME PLAYER

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